​Heard in Muscle Shoals

The largest city in Colbert County, Alabama, on the Tennessee River, Muscle Shoals has a population today of slightly more than 13,000 people. But this mostly rural community has had a big impact on American music. It was a mecca for rhythm and blues, rock and pop artists in the 1960s and 1970s. You might even say it was the birthplace of Southern Rock.

Artists including Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Lou Rawls, Bob Seger, Jimmy Buffett, Joe Cocker, Carlos Santana, Greg and Duane Allman and others found their sound at the two recording studios that put Muscle Shoals on the musical map. But it was local musicians - the Swampers and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section among others - that gave the region its distinctive sound and clear claim to American music history.